Introduction to Woodworking
by ATLiens
Summary: The group takes woodworking, and the girls swoon over the hot new teacher.  Britta/Annie friendly rivalry.
1. Introduction to Woodworking

**First story with the whole group and my OC; Mr. Nathan ('Nate') Patterson, a tall, dark, tattooed 31-year-old woodshop teacher who there is much more to than meets the eye. The ladies of the group develop a soft-spot for him, Jeff reacts predictably.**

**Significantly less 'shippy' than 'Indecent Proposal', though there is some OC/Britta, OC/Annie...and if you look hard enough, even some Annie/Britta (the best ship).**

**Rated T for some suggestive situations and a severed finger.**

**Community, not owned by me...OC Nate is essentially me.**

**Introduction to Woodworking**

"I'm so excited for woodshop!" Annie squealed as she walked down the narrow hallways of Greendale, Abed and Britta in tow, "Last month when the police kicked in my door because they thought the meth-dealing former tenant of my place still lived there, they totally broke my coffee table and now I can make a new one!"

"I'm actually excited to see how the dynamic of us working with our hands affects the group." Abed replied, wearing a typical 'Abed' outfit; hipster t-shirt, blue and yellow hoodie and pencil jeans, "I had a really good time when we took pottery, watching Jeff come undone and reveal his deep insecurities, but this will be more interesting; it's all of us in the class."

"Well I just want to get in there and get my hands dirty and learn a new skill." Britta, her eyes darkened under aviators responded, "Maybe even stick it to the patriarchal machine and prove that just because I'm a woman doesn't mean that I can't..."

Annie and Abed both groaned in unison as Britta prepared to launch into one of her 'I am woman, hear me roar!' spiels that they had learned to tune out. As they entered the shop, Britta kept speaking, while Abed remained stone-faced and Annie marveled at the size and amount of the machines; one that looked like a giant, metal oven, a few that looked like big sewing machines, and finally, a few large machines that she recognized were saws of some type. They walked to the far end of the shop where a classroom awaited.

Britta continued to speak as they entered, noticing that the rest of the group had already made it and the class was nearly full, "...and even though women now eclipse men in the numbers of applicants to and graduates from university, the average woman working full-time earns only 79 cents on the dollar compared to the average man..."

"Can you go ONE day without sucking the joy out of something?" Jeff said with exasperation. He was seated in the middle-right of the classroom, looking good as usual in a tight gray button-up and pencil Dockers.

"I'm sorry...Man." Britta condescended, "For trying to make aware the injustices of our supposed free society."

"They are aware...WE are aware. You make us aware every time you open your mouth." He shot back rapid-fire.

Britta was silenced as she prepared her retort by a deep, masculine voice behind her; she turned around to see a tall, dark-haired man enter the room in a floor-length white coat, "Alright everybody, take a seat so we can begin."

Annie and Abed sat at the front by Shirley, Pierce and Troy were near the back, while Britta plonked down, defeated, beside Jeff. There were a few recognizable faces in the room; Starburns, Chang, Garrett, Magnitude and Vicky stood out, and among them were a crowd of ten or so additional faces that no one else knew or recognized. The man at the front grabbed a sheet off his desk and regarded the class.

"Hello all, I am..." he grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote on the blackboard his name in messy, rushed printing, "Mr...Nate...Patterson...you may call me Nate, or Nathan, and if you're in the right place, then let me welcome you to Introduction to Woodworking, where in addition to learning and respecting the rules and machinery of the shop, you'll get to make all sorts of great things; birdhouses, end tables, footstools, shelves..."

Britta regarded the teacher with curiosity; around her age (which was _fairly_ young), about as tall as Winger, with dark skin, medium-length chestnut hair and a relatively solid build...but what she really zeroed in on were his eyes; they were blue...no, green...no...grey. Some eerie combination of the three that played a sharp contrast against his relatively dark features. They were animated and alive, but also carried a heady sadness to them that struck a deep chord with her.

He was actually a very attractive man, but to acknowledge or make light of this would probably only confirm to the group that she (like most women) have a bit of a thing for men in authority positions, a viewpoint that while wholly real and logical, clashed against the Marxist-feminist ideals she had set up and ingrained within her mind. He continued to speak as he took a look at the list.

"Alright, so let's take attendance...Barnes, Troy..."

Attendance took only a few seconds, but Annie was rapt the whole time, sitting beside Abed as she stared at Mr. Patterson. She, too, was not at all impervious to his charms...I mean look at him! Tall, dark and intimidating, but with sad, thoughtful eyes and a heavy command of the room; he was like an alternative Jeff. She wondered how Jeff would react to all of this, though at the same time she knew probably not well; probably the same way he had reacted to Rich and Vaughan in the past. Whenever Jeff's Alpha-male status is threatened, he goes into attack-mode.

"Okay, well now that that's over, let me show you the machines and how they work." He ordered the class. Slowly they rose from their desks and followed him into the shop. Shirley caught up to Annie and scrunched herself between her and Abed as they walked out the door.

"Mhmm!" Shirley grunted, "Tell the mailman I want to receive that package!"

"Shirley!" Annie laughed along with her at her obvious sexual double-entendre, "He is something though, isn't he?"

"He does seem to have the same intimidating but charming presence as Jeff does..." Abed answered, "But there's something kind of different about the vibe that he puts off...something I can't quite put my finger on just yet..."

"Well when you do, let us know!" Shirley said.

As they were all out in the shop, he stood before a machine that looked like a steel table with a six-inch-high partition in the middle. On top of it was a cardboard box.

"In addition to the classic 'No running in the shop' rule, I have just three others." He said as he held out the box in front of him, "The first rule is that in my shop, when machines are running, you must always wear safety goggles; trust me, the last thing you want is for a nickel-sized piece of wood traveling 60 miles an hour to hit you in the eye. "

Everyone reached forward into the box to remove the plastic, clear goggles, though only Annie in her fastidiousness had placed them over her face. Mr. Patterson noticed this and gave her a gentle smile, which she _definitely _noticed. She blushed and looked at the ground for a second. As she did this, he walked to stand in front of her.

"I appreciate your enthusiasm, Miss Edison." He said kindly from just a few feet in front of her. She looked up; the man towered over her and smelled like cedar, cigarettes and hard work, quite a tantalizing melange even if it shouldn't be, "But we won't be running the machines today, so you can take the goggles off...just remember for the next time, okay?"

"Okay!" She said meekly, feeling gleeful on the inside, though that feeling began to slightly dissipate as he stepped away.

"The second rule; no jewelery or excessively loose clothing; it can get caught in the machines." He said, "I've seen more than one student lose a pair of pants to the lathe, and it's a very embarrassing situation."

The class nodded in agreement.

"The third and final rule is also very important, as I don't want anyone here to be placed in danger." He continued to his rapt audience, looking at Annie again, "Miss Edison, you'll want to pay attention to this one too; if you have long hair, it must either be tied into a ponytail and tucked into the back of your shirt, or tied back into a bun..."

"Why is that a rule?" Britta snarked. The group collectively groaned; was this her typical 'I need to defy!' instinct kicking in?

...or...OR...did she just notice Mr. Patterson semi-flirting with Annie and get a little bit envious? Loath to admit it to herself, it was probably about 40% the former and 60% the latter. Annie always got attention from guys...she was her best friend and her biggest competitor.

"Because it's for your own safety, Miss Perry." He answered politely, training his now-intense eyes onto her with a gentle smile for a daring contrast.

"Are you sure it's not some sort of way to keep the women of the class in their proper place?"

Instead of being outraged or mad, he just laughed; Britta noticed the little lines around his mouth and eyes jiggled as he did, "Look, Gloria Steinem, there is no sexism or racism or reverse-placeism happening here, this is just a shop rule that ensures the safety of everyone, man or woman, with long hair."

"It seems like a weird rule." She replied sarcastically, matching his stare.

She felt Jeff grab her arm from beside her and lower himself to speak quietly into her ear, "Please, for once just shut up."

She stared daggers at him, "No, I won't!" She stomped her foot, "This dinosaur wants to see to it that the women of his class are further repressed, and I won't..."

This time everyone in the class groaned; Britta's shtick was hardly unknown to the student body at Greendale.

Silence ruled the room until it was broken by a familiar monotone voice, "Would you like a piece of chocolate, Britta?" Abed asked.

"No!" She yelled at Abed, even though it probably would have helped immensely.

"I won't have disrespect and insubordination in my shop, Miss Perry." Patterson replied with liquid calm, before pointing at the door behind her, "Get out."

Britta's mouth dropped at this...nice move.

Britta was like that, though; she was like that with Jeff, and he clearly remembered; whenever she's attracted to a man that she knows she shouldn't be, all she does is challenge him...maybe it was so later after sleeping with them she could somehow rationalize it away, or maybe it was just how she was raised to flirt...it was her mating dance.

Before she can remember anything, she turned back into the hallway and walked away. She heard Mr. Patterson continuing to speak.

Instead of going home to hang out and study, Britta lingered around the school, taking in a quick session with her study group in Room F. She listened as Pierce spoke.

"I think he's cool; his no-nonsense approach and rakish good looks remind me of me." Pierce said in response to someone, obviously speaking of Patterson.

"He's such a cutie!" Shirley gushed shamelessly, shaking her head in a tizzy.

"Not as cute as I was at that age...if you could have seen me then then you would have thrown yourself at me so fast that..."

"I see you now and I'd rather throw myself in front of a train." She said in her usual I-ain't-messin' tone that she could turn on and off like a faucet.

"Yeah well, I don't like him." Jeff spoke, and as usual when he did, everybody turned to listen.

"Oh come on Jeff!" Annie answered in her 'You're hopeless!' voice, "This again?"

"I just think he's kind of bossy and authoritarian...you guys saw what he did to Britta."

"He wouldn't have done that if Britta wasn't being a turd." Abed said plainly, causing Britta to turn to him and say his name in a shocked gasp.

"Jeffrey, are you really going to be jealous of every guy that comes along that's better looking and more charming than you are?" Shirley said with sympathy and a sad face.

"He is NOT better looking than me!" He said through clenched teeth. No one at the table responded positively or negatively, though he did hear a few sighs and one-syllable answers.

The group continued to argue and bicker back and forth, but curiously, Britta remained silent the whole time.


	2. Fine Arts

**Fine Arts**

Patterson was working alone in the shop, taking a wood chisel to a large piece of oak that was spinning rapidly on the lathe. Slowly but surely, from its solid square form, a delicate, round shape emerged. He turned the machine off every few minutes to check and make sure his work was coming together properly.

Britta turned the corner and stood hesitantly at the door, unsure of whether to enter, but definitely sure she was checking out Mr. Patterson's backside...it was pretty nice, prominent even as it was cloaked under a white work coat. She was staring; a fact she only realized when she felt herself flush with color. She entered the shop slowly as he turned the machine back on again.

"Goggles, Miss Perry." He said without turning around as he flipped the machine off again; how did he do that? She wasn't wearing heels today do her footsteps against the concrete floor of the shop were quiet and noiseless. She saw the cardboard box against the far wall and leafed through them for the goggles before walking over to him, where she noticed he had turned to face her.

"Is there something you need?" He asked gently.

"How about an apology?" She said defiantly.

"When you have one ready I'd be glad to hear it." He answered, walking back to the classroom, where she removed her goggles and followed him in a huff.

"Why the hell should I apologize to you!" She barked as he turned his back to the door and stood over his desk.

"You registered for my class because you wanted to learn how to build things." He answered as he turned to face her, those gentle eyes getting glazed over with anger, "This is MY shop, so you play by my rules, so you can imagine that when some haughty little blonde comes in and throws accusations at me and assumes she knows more about my job than I do that I don't appreciate it...so...?"

Britta could feel her legendary resolve wearing down as she looked at the floor, "I'm sorry..." she muttered low, but just high enough for him to hear. He smiled softly at her.

"Thank you, Miss Perry." He answered as he unbuttoned his work coat and turned to hang it on his coat rack.

"_Whoa!" _Britta thought as she finally saw some of his body that had been hidden under that unflattering white coat.

His arms were toned and muscular, adorned on each side with colorful tattoo sleeves, and not douchey tattoos either; no band names or overt pop-culture nods or anything tribal, though she did see a goblin, a few stars, some koi fish and something that looked like the Hindu goddess of time, Kali ('_Rudimentary Vedic Theology, for the win!_'). It was body art that was actually body art, something Britta admired.

Further up, those arms ended at broad, masculine shoulders that bookended a prominent chest that poked out from under the fabric of a Black Rebel Motorcycle Club tee shirt (_'That's a good band'_). More out of instinct than on purpose, she curled a stray strand of her delicate blonde hair in arousal.

"That rule isn't stupid or even sexist, Miss Perry..."

"Britta." She replied softly, he now sat at his desk and looked at her.

"Well Britta, that man with the star-shaped chinstraps has a ponytail, he'd have to tuck it back, as does that kid who always says 'Pop Pop!', he has dreadlocks." He began, "Long hair can be a massive safety issue in the shop. Do you know the machine I was working on just now?"

"Uhh...no?" She replied; she realized that she was staring at his pecs, though he seemed to be oblivious to it.

"It's called a lathe, it spins wood at a high speed so you can chisel rounded shapes out of it, quite handy." He said, before inhaling deeply, "Fourteen years ago when I was a senior in high school, I was a teaching assistant in junior woodshop." He began, taking a breath, "And there was a girl, Katie Phillips...actually your friend Miss Edison kind of reminds me of her; short, blue eyes and long dark hair..."

"Okay." Britta said, listening intently while narrowing her eyes.

"Oh, it's not like that." He picked up her meaning instantly, "We talked the odd-time, but I'd hardly have called us 'good friends'. Anyways, one day she was working on the lathe, making a baseball bat or a table leg or something...she had forgotten to tie her hair back, but no one had really paid attention. She secured the wood, placed her goggles on and started up the machine..."

He looked down for a second, and Britta slowly approached him, which he noticed.

"I remember seeing it all happen in slow-motion from across the shop; the wood spun once, twice, and on the third time it caught a strand of her hair, and it was over in a flash; the lathe twisted her neck with such force that it snapped, and she died right there in the shop...I'll never forget that day, I had nightmares about it for years. That, Miss Perry, is why I have that rule."

Britta was hit by a sudden realization; this man...this very attractive man, wasn't sexist at all; he was deeply scarred by something that happened to him in his youth - a lot like she was - and it had managed to make him even more attractive. He rose to his feet and walked towards the door.

"We got off on the wrong foot today." He said calmly as he stopped beside her, "Those rules are there for your own safety, and if you're willing to respect them, then I would be more than happy to teach you the art of woodworking."

"Yeah...no...I mean, yeah, absolutely." She said, stuttering but at the same time picturing that poor dead girl's graphic injury.

"Well great." He said as he walked past her.

"Something else brought me back here to talk to you." She said as he walked out the door, but he turned to face her, "You called me Gloria Steinem...how do you even know who that is?"

"I may have taken a Women's Studies course or two when I was working towards my Art History degree." He answered her.

"Okay, now I know you're messing with me!" She said, though it was more in a joking tone than one of derision.

"Oh...so because I have tattoos and teach woodshop at Greendale doesn't mean I can be educated?" He said to her, shocked.

"Uhh...um..." She stuttered, but he smiled at her in a 'I got you!' type of way. He pointed to the wall behind his left shoulder at a piece of paper that hung in a frame, and she walked over to analyze it.

"Honors...from Berkeley, not bad." She hummed appreciatively, "That's a great degree, what are you doing teaching woodshop?"

He sighed again, "I was just about to head out, but I usually stop and have a cigarette in the quad, would you like to join me? I can tell you all about it."

"Sure!" Britta replied with more enthusiasm than she probably wanted. Before she knew it, he and her were walking side by side to the quad.

"So, your middle name is Linnaeus?" She teased.

"Shhh...don't tell..." He joked back as they walked.

"...so then I did a little bit of foot modeling, got my GED and now I've been working towards my Psychology degree here for two years, after this...who knows? I think I'd like to help abused women...or the environment, I haven't decided yet." Britta said casually, blowing the pungent, aromatic blue smoke out of her nose as she finished speaking. She missed smoking; not that she had quit, though since Pierce's successful hypnosis sessions she had cut back from a pack a day to two packs a week. She didn't really mind; fact is, she still liked the taste of smoke and the relaxation it brought her. She could never truly quit.

"That is quite the interesting life you've led so far." Patterson replied in kind, himself smoking his grit slowly, "I can sort of see where it all comes from."

"Where what comes from?" She asks as she takes another drag.

He motioned from her feet to her head with his hands, "All this...the conviction, the defensiveness, the feminism, the hipster-biker chic fashion sense. You haven't had an easy life...I was wrong in my assumptions about you."

She looked taken aback, "What assumptions did you have about me?"

"I thought you were just like one of the many other have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too trust fund feminists I've encountered...but I was wrong."

Britta blushed as she stubbed the smoke out on the ground and stomped it with her sneaker, "Well, I came out to get your story and I've ended up telling you mine, so...?"

"What do you want to know?" Patterson asked.

"Just who you are. Give me the basics." She replied coyly; he was extremely easy to talk to.

She found herself wondering if he knew between the humanities degree from a liberal school, the tattoos, the big rough hands and the sad eyes just how many of her buttons he was pushing.

"Okay." He began, himself butting out his cigarette, before grabbing another and lighting it, "Well, I was born in January of 1980 and raised right here, and I went to Riverside High, class of 1998."

"For realsies?" She perked up, "My last year before I dropped out was '95, maybe we've met before?"

"You probably wouldn't have recognized me; I had acne and scoliosis and was put in all of the AP classes." He said as he lowered his eyes, "Not saying you couldn't do AP, but I didn't start to look like I do now until I was 16, and I didn't get my sleeves until I was 23..."

Britta sighed and nodded her head, _'Huh...we're the same age'_. He continued.

"I graduated and got into the Psychology program at Berkeley, but after half a year I switched into Art History...and I'm not ashamed at all to say it was because of a girl." He continued to smoke, "But I enjoyed the material, and I graduated with Honors in 2002. After that it was a bit tough finding work, because really, Art History? So I came back to Riverside and took a job with my buddy working as a cabinet maker, and it turns out I was _really_ good at it and I enjoyed it, too..."

"So how did you end up here?" Britta pried.

"I'm getting to that." Patterson laughed, "I originally stuck with the cabinetmaking just so I could save enough money to pay for grad school, I wanted to be a museum curator, but slowly I let that dream die...I was making excellent money, like $1700 a week cash, doing custom work and installations, and I enjoyed it, so I stuck with it. By the time I was 27 I had my student loans paid off, my house paid off and my '67 Camaro SS, why stop then?"

"I can't say that I disagree with your logic." She assured him, before grabbing a cigarette out of her own pack and lighting it.

"Right? So anyways, one day last year I'm doing kitchen work on this nice apartment in Capitol Hill, and the owner was a small, bald, aggressive little man that you've come to know as..."

"Dean Pelton..." She finished his sentence.

He smiled at her, "That's right. And after propositioning me a few times and getting nowhere we got to chatting; he's a strange little man, but he has a good heart. I usually pop by his office for a drink and a chat a few times a week. When he found about about my education, he told me that Greendale was getting a woodshop and would need a teacher...the pay wouldn't be as good as what I was making, but I would be able to make my own hours and I'd get tenure, so..."

"Here we are..."

"I was cleaning up doing the cabinetmaking, don't get me wrong, but I don't miss having to work a 60-hour week." He lamented, "I'm well-compensated here, but I only have to work 32 hours a week and 17 in the summer...it gives me some free time and I like that."

"Plenty of time to be all art-historical." She said, but mentally slapped herself for saying it.

"Basically, yeah." He answered, stubbing out his smoke, before turning to her again, "Anyways, I have to get home, but it was nice talking to you, I'm glad we sorted things out. You'll be back in class on Thursday?"

"I'm actually looking forward to it." She blushed, tossing her own smoke to the ground and stomping it out. They both walked in separate directions, towards where they were each headed. Britta turned and looked back, half-hoping, half-expecting him to turn as well.

He never turned back.


	3. Severed Finger

**Severed Finger**

**Two Weeks Later...**

"Ah, that's very nice, Miss Edison." Patterson said kindly as she fed the large, flat piece of wood through the planer to smooth it, "It'll be a fine top for your new coffee table."

She looked up at him and blushed, "Thank you, Nate."

"The police know that it's you and not some crankster living there now, right?"

"Nate! Of course!" She blushed.

"Well if they ruin any more of furniture you can make it in the shop. New and useful skill, free furniture, win win!"

"You ridiculous man!"

"Keep it up."

Annie watched him as he walked over to the far side of the room to check on the work of the other students, never once looking back. When the top came through the other side, she switched the planer off before grabbing it and placing it in her cubby in the storage room in the back, on which her name was written in permanent marker on a piece of tape. She grabbed the four long, smooth table legs she had made last week and carried them over to the band saw; she had been planning to make them taper at the bottom.

She pulled her goggles back over her head and tucked her ponytail into the back of her shirt, pressing the 'On' button as the saw whirred to life with a satisfying hum. She smiled sweetly.

Annie was in full compete mode; don't let that angel smile fool you. After Britta had told the group that Nate was actually a very sweet, intelligent man who had talked to and listened to her. Annie was blissfully aware of her own crush on him, and she decided that she had needed to step her game up to win...she was always competing with Britta; blonde, edgy, sexually cavalier Britta. Deep down she hated herself for it, but at the same time, not-so-deep down, she saw that Britta had excellent taste in men; they were always cute and cool and mysterious and sexy and fun, she went for the best...why didn't she deserve the best, too?

She was even slightly envious that she and Jeff had been hooking up casually throughout the past year...not that that was what all that she wanted from him, but at least Britta had gotten to experience him fully, instead of being shunned and tucked away, but still subjected to those longing gazes and awkward moments...At least Britta left Jeff with no unanswered questions or pithy objections.

That, and that alone was why they tended to go after the same guys.

Annie's method of competition was slightly different than Britta's; instead of using commonality and camaraderie, she had (not so long ago) learned to leverage her body; as a result, her sweaters were getting tighter and her skirts were getting shorter every day...and even though her efforts had earned her an appreciative 'Pop Pop!' from Magnitude and an 'I'd like to wear you like baseball glove.' from Starburns (gross), Mr. Patterson had hardly seemed to be paying her any extra attention. Still though, she also knew that she had to have a few moves up her sleeve to win this one, and would she really be Annie if she didn't have a backup plan?

Just as she prepared to cut the first notch out of her first leg, Jeff showed up beside the machine; his face was covered in four-day stubble and he looked like he hadn't slept in a long time.

"What IS it with him?" He asked her; she could even hear his voice over the hum of the saw, "Why are all the girls in class just fawning over him? He isn't even that good-looking!"

"Is somebody jealous?" She asked, still focusing on her work.

"Pfft, jealous? Me? Of him? No!" He responded unconvincingly. She had finished her first leg and grabbed the second, "And don't think I don't see what you've been doing!"

"Making a coffee table?" She asked tilt-headed.

"No!"

"Then what am I doing?" She asked, her mouth open in surprise.

"Please, you're slutting up to try to get him to notice you!" He said bluntly, "I could wear that skirt as a wristband and that top as a legwarmer!"

"Well, for someone so 'not jealous', clearly you are, Jeff, and I don't like you making assumptions about me." She focused on her work and blocked him away, "Why can't you just let it go already? Did pottery class teach you nothing?"

"BECAUSE!" He said as he prepared to begin a classic Winger speech, before his eyes widened and he looked at the blade. He looked at Annie again and looked at the blade once more.

"What?" She asked in confusion, before looking down and seeing what had caused him to stop; a pool of blood and a throbbing, excruciating amount of pain...and the small tip of her middle finger, at the top knuckle...on the table, not attached to the rest of her hand.

Everything around her went black, but a few things lingered with her as she faded from and to consciousness.

_"Whoa!", that was Jeff..._

_"Oh my god!", that was Britta..._

_She heard an effeminate shriek; that had to be Troy..._

_"Oh my god...Mr. Nadir, go into the fridge in the back room." That was Nate...his voice was so calm, "There are ziplock bags in the drawer to the right of it, and ice in the freezer. Grab two bags and fill one with ice, place the finger in the other one and put it in the bag with the ice."_

_"Got it.", that was Abed. She heard the faint sounds of running footsteps over the more quiet, subdued ones of people starting to circle around her._

_"Mrs. Bennett, call the health center and tell them Miss Edison has lost a part of her finger and they need to be ready to re-attach ASAP...time is of the essence."_

_"...Come on, Abed, we have to get her to the health center." That was Nate again. Her eyes briefly flashed open and she realized that she was moving, and moving fairly quickly. She saw a bolt of dark, temple-length hair ringing his face, reflecting the soft, ethereal glow of the lights of the hallway, and he seemed to be exerting little to no energy carrying her at a near-sprint. Her arm was flung over his shoulder to keep it elevated and she felt a large hand devouring the side of her face, supporting her. She smiled a dazed, intoxicated smile._

Just after this, things went black and stayed that way.

"Miss Edison...Miss Edison...Annie?" A gentle, deep voice sounded, calling her back from the fuzzy haze of painkillers and adrenaline. She opened her eyes; slowly at first and then finally fully; her vision was foggy, but after a few seconds she saw the gentle, relieved face of Nathan Patterson beside the bed she was on, smiling in relief.

"Hey." He said softly, "How do you feel?"

"Ugh...sedated...floaty." She answered in a monotone voice, "What happened to me?"

"Well..." He started, building up suspense, "I don't know if you weren't paying attention or if Mr. Winger was distracting you, but you severed the tip of your left middle finger on the band saw. You lost a lot of blood, but you'll be fine."

"What time is it?"

"It's about 8:30. You've been here for four hours." He said with a soothing voice.

She bolted upright onto her bed, a panicked look on her face, "Ohmygod! I missed my sociology test!", and then she held her left hand in front of her face; aside from a ring of red surrounded by a horizontal mattress stitch and a suddenly tremendous and dull pain, all of her fingers were there, though all except for the middle one could be wiggled freely. The nail was a darkened purplish black, but at least she could paint it.

"Calm down!" he said with a laugh as he grabbed her wrist and gently placed her hand on her lap. His hands were so big and calloused, but there was something that felt gentle about his touch; they were everything a man's hands should be, and her skin was burning under his fingertips. "After the nurse wraps your hand, it'll be 4-8 weeks until its healed enough to start getting back to using it again. Mr. Barnes alerted your Sociology professor about the incident and you'll be allowed to retake the test next week."

"But what about the class!" She asked urgently; only Annie would be concerned about her grade after she lost part of a finger.

"There are only four weeks left and you won't be fully recovered by the end. I can't let you use the machines, but if you want to come and hang out with your friends then that's cool." He said softly, "I've seen your academic record and I know you want to go to graduate school, so I've given you an A+, it's the first time ever I've given anything above a C for an incomplete semester. You were a conscientious and very skilled student, it's the grade you probably would have received anyways. I'll finish your coffee table for you."

She blushed uncontrollably and smiled at him, "Thank you so much!"

He smiled back at her, "No problem. You'll be able to attend the rest of your classes after you've had a few days to let the pain subside, and they gave you a dissolving suture, so you won't need to get the stitches taken out. The bandage can come off in two weeks."

"And Jeff?" She blushed, laying her head back onto the pillow behind her.

"Mr. Winger is still in the class, though he receives an automatic 'F'...I guess he wanted to finish his bookshelf." He answered, "Which I can allow, but I'm not changing his grade. I warned the students numerous times about not distracting their classmates while they worked on the machines, but I suppose he was caught up in getting the high score on Bejeweled!."

"Oh..." Annie said sadly.

"The rest of your friends are outside, I just wanted to tell you the good news...here, take a look..." he placed his right hand before her and she grabbed it and pulled it closer to her eyes, _'Wow, his pinky is as big as my thumb...'_. Her heart was pounding in her chest, but she managed to look at his hand.

One thing she noticed the word 'Mishelle', written in flowing, elegant cursive across his wrist, and she had to fight to not make a shocked gasp; was it his wife? Can't be; no ring, a fact she had picked up on less than two minutes after she first saw him. Was it his girlfriend? Can't be; Nate seems a little too logical and intelligent to get a girlfriend's name written permanently on his wrist. Was it some..._woman_ that he was having _relations_ with? That is possible.

This was clearly going to bug Annie for days. "Do you see it?" Nate asked, pulling her from her thoughts of his sex life.

She turned her attention from her analytical mind back to his hand at his prompt, and she had to squint to see it, but it was definitely there; a faded pink scar, running from the second knuckle of his pinky, through the second knuckle of his index finger, and finally curving dramatically upwards and slashing right through the center of his middle finger. He gently flipped his hand and she saw it on the other side as well, the cut running vertically up and permanently mangling the nail on his middle finger. She gasped.

"I had my own band saw accident when I was just two years older than you are. I lost most of my pinky and ring fingers...and it took me a year and it still sometimes hurts when it rains, but I recovered." He said as he patted her shoulder, before he smiled softly at her, "Get better, okay?"

"Okay." She said quietly. He turned and opened the door, leaving it open as her friends flowed in to see if she was okay.

Two days later when the study group reconvened, Annie was the last one in, which had never happened before. All of this left Jeff to stew in the discomfort of the room; they were all staring at him.

"Do you think she'll be here?" Troy asked, "I hope she is, because I need help with my Sociology paper."

"Well Troy, I think if Annie can get over the fact that she lost a finger because Jeff was jealous of yet another boy she liked, I'm sure she'd be glad to help you." Britta said caustically, smirking at Jeff.

"I am NOT jealous!" He fumed.

"Oh please!" Britta countered, "She told me that just seconds before she cut off her finger that you accused her of dressing slutty to get his attention...why can't you admit it!"

"There's nothing to admit!" He silenced the rest of their questions with his outburst, but their turned their eyes to the door.

"An-nie!" Shirley said cheerfully as she walked in; wearing one of her typical not-too-revealing green sweater sets and her left hand was bandaged. She hugged Shirley as she took her usual seat.

After a quick greeting, Jeff looked over at her, but she was deliberately ducking his eye contact, "Look Annie...I'm sorry about the other day, it was wrong of me."

Instead of doing what she usually did; softening her face and bringing tears to her eyes, she just kept looking away from him, and this hurt Jeff more than anyone at the table could have imagined, "So, how are everyone's projects going?" She asked, before the table again erupted in camaraderie...except for Jeff, who just sulked silently in his chair. Annie didn't even look at him once.

Forty-five minutes later when the group was getting ready to leave, Jeff still sat motionless like a statue in his chair. Everyone left quickly it seems except for Annie, though she usually had reams of pens, binders and papers to shuffle into her backpack, so by the time she's done she was almost always the last one out. She did this and prepared to leave, and she was at the door when Jeff called out to her. This time she acknowledged him.

"Annie...I'm sorry!" He said desperately, "Please...I don't want you to be mad at me."

He half-expected her to continue ignoring him and keep walking, so he was surprised (pleasantly so) when she turned back and sat down...but the pleasantness of the surprise evaporated when she had her 'pissed off' Annie-face on as she regarded him.

"You're a real...a-hole, you know that!" She exclaimed, unable to call him that bad word.

"I'm shocked that you haven't noticed that by now." He countered coolly.

"Ugh..." She grunted, "If I wanted sarcasm I would have just kept walking and ignored you!"

"So what do you want, Annie!" He said with more desperation.

"What do I want!" She outburst, before turning inward and thinking; Jeff knew her thinking face well, "I want..."

She hesitated and he spoke, "Just tell me..."

"I want you...to admit that you're jealous of Nate." She said formidably.

"Jealous of that tattooed jag? Never!" He replied defiantly.

"And I want you to say that he's better looking than you are!"

Jeff was floored...wow, really? He could lie and say he was jealous...though it wasn't totally a lie, but to outright lie and say that this douchebag was hotter than him, Jeff Winger? He laughed silently.

"I knew it..." She started with a spark, "You won't date me because I'm too young, but whenever some guy comes around that I like, you get all defensive and hostile. You're like a child who's favorite toy gets taken away from him!"

She rose and prepared to storm off, and Jeff almost let her get away, a full twenty feet out of the study room before he called out her name.

She turned to face him and he saw she had to try to suppress a smile, "Yes?"

He walked up towards her until he was within a few feet of her face, "You were right; I am jealous of him..taking you and Britta from me...It's made me feel lonely and empty...I'm sorry."

She started a smile, "And..."

Jeff was deeply pained by what he was about to say, "And...he...is..."

"He is what...?" She tried to tease out of him as she rolled her hands.

"He is, by the very slimmest of possible margins...", he squeezed his index finger and thumb less than a millimeter apart to emphasize his point, "better looking than I am...but only because I have a few years on him..."

Annie's smile now returned full-wattage to her face, and she leaped up to hug him gently; he missed how soft she felt against him as returned her hug. She smiled at him again before turning to walk away.

"So am I forgiven?" He asked after her.

"You're getting there..." She replied, turning to taunt him with her smile.


	4. Daughters

**I like the nice little scene between OC Nate and Jeff at the end of this chapter.**

**Daughters**

**Three Weeks Later...**

Britta arrived in front of the door to woodshop, expecting to be alone because she had a plan; tonight was the night, she was going to seduce Nate...it didn't even matter if it all happened in the classroom, on his desk, tonight it was going to happen.

According to her beat-up Casio it was 6:56 PM, and she knew that Mr. Patterson was very strict about his office hours (7-8 PM Mondays and Thursdays, today was Thursday) and that showing up early would get her kicked out. Still, she waited.

She felt extra sexy today; she wore her skintight jeans over lacy red panties and a tight white tanktop, under which a matching red bra beckoned without any subtlety; Britta may have been a die-hard femenist, but only when it was beneficial not to be did she stray from her beliefs. She crouched down and waited, humming to herself.

A few minutes later she heard footsteps coming down the hall, soft, measured and quiet. She rose to her feet and expected to see her dream guy, but as the door opened she dropped her mouth and gasped.

"What are YOU doing here!" She uttered quickly at Annie, who moved to her side.

"Oh...just hanging out." She said coyly, lowering to take a seat beside Britta, "It's nice this time of night, I was just studying and I went for a walk."

"Yeah."

Britta took a second to glance over Annie; that little green dress with the red flecks...no stockings or bra, hair down and a little more blush than usual...Britta narrowed her eyes and focused on Annie, knowing why she was in the same place as she was.

"You don't say, Count of Monte...cristo" She looked at her watch; 6:59, "Speaking of hanging out, your _thisclose _to spilling out of the top of your dress, I can almost see your nipple when I squint."

Annie flushed red, "Oh my god!", but she realized the psyche out as Britta rose and ran towards the door, but Annie was seated closer and grabbed her leg, dragging her down. She used her body position to get leverage and rise, entering the slightly dimmed front room of the shop. She descended the steps quickly and made her way towards the lighted classroom. She got halfway across the floor before she felt herself dragged down by weight.

"Little bitch!" Britta yelled.

"Stripper-boot wearer!" Annie jested with Britta on top of her.

"Man-stealer!"

"Hey! No running!" a familiar voice sounded from the classroom. the girls regarded themelves for a second, before they continued jostling; this time Britta had gotten the lead, and she was now running, the rules be damned.

She stopped ten feet from the door and turned to Annie, exhausted and breathing, "Wait...Annie wait!" She said between breaths.

"Yeah..." Annie gasped.

"You and I are friends...and once more we're fighting over a man...is that what friendship is about!"

Annie looked to be thinking for a second, before she regarded Britta again, tears forming in her delicate eyes, "No...Britta...honestly, I feel horrible, always competing with you like I do...it's not right."

"You're right...it isn't." Britta assured her, and they leaned close to hug.

Annie pointed above Britta's left shoulder, "Is that a Yemeni women's rights protest!", and it worked, because Britta turned around.

"Where?" She asked, turning and seeing nothing, before she felt Annie brush by her, "Oh you little sociopath!"

It was too late for Britta; Annie got the drop on her too close to the door, and once she entered the classroom she closed the door behind her and turned the lock, hearing Britta crash against it with a solid _thud!_. She looked at Patterson, who regarded her closely.

Annie would cease to be Annie if she didn't have a plan; revealing skin and a bit of extra blush is merely the first facet of her plan. Mr. Patterson regarded her with a small smile as she stood with her back to the door.

"Good evening Miss Edison, what can I do for you?" He asked kindly, before looking back down to his desk and doing some more writing.

She walked over to the front of his desk and pulled a small piece of paper from between her breasts (_this dress doesn't have pockets!) _and unfolded it, "Well, I actually have a few design ideas for a bookshelf that I want to make...can I run them by you?"

"Yeah sure..." He answered as she slid the piece of paper over to him ('_He kind of just touched my boobs!' *giggle*_), and sure enough it was all there; a flat piece of thick wood, routered in the front, but with just a plain, square piece serving as the side partition.

"Yeah it looks good...you can use the Ash because it's stronger, and knowing you it's probably for textbooks.", she did a giggle and blush, "But the partition...it's a little boring."

"What do you mean? It'll do it's job." Annie asked as she moved beside him and ducked down to look over his shoulder, _'Citrus, Pine, Marlboro Reds, sweat and vanilla fabric softener...yummy...keep it together, Edison!' _She told herself while breathing him in.

The jury is out on the origins of this whole 'move'. Jeff calls it 'The Annie Edison covert over-the-shoulder boob reveal' and Pierce calls it 'Big Boobs' Big Move', but the nomenclature is of less significance than one thng; the group has wondered if she discovered it by accident that day she was studying for the debate with Jeff (as mainatined by Jeff, Troy, Shirley and herself), or if she knew all along the effect that it has on men and could use it whenever she pleased (as maintained by Abed, Pierce and Britta).

The real and honest truth? She discovered it by accident...but not on that day with Jeff. It happened with Professor Duncan when she wanted to help with the Duncan Principle but he said no and sat down...she leaned over his shoulder to beg, and...voila!

It certainly worked on Jeff; she can manipulate him now with such ease that it's no longer fun or exhilirating anymore. She looked down at the top of his head and expected to see it turned into her chest, but she was kind of sad when it wasn't. She made a pout that was invisible to him.

"We have some nice Victorian accents that are functional and will add a bit of style to the shelf, and you can paint them pink or purple." He said quickly, before turning his head gently to the left..._'Oh look, boobs._' he thought inside his head.

She definitely noticed his glance (it wasn't exactly subtle); the move once again pays dividends. He rose from his seat and turned to face Annie; she was more than a full head shorter than he was, and she looked up at him with her best smile.

"So, uh...yeah..." He stuttered, "In two weeks when your hand is back to normal, you can come in and make this. I'll set aside a few pieces for you."

"Yay!" She jumped up and down, _'Come on girls, don't fail me now!'_, "But...oh..."

"What?"

"Well, I have day classes and I just got a job where I work three nights a week..." She started, looking down nervously before engaging him again, "Could I...maybe work on you...WITH you, when you have office hours? Just you and me?"

If Nate had been blind before, now he could see; the dress was no more revealing than what she usually wore, her makeup was stepped up just a little and she was always happy and cheerful, and it wasn't even that obvious Freudian slip...it was something she did when she said 'Just you and me?'; she seductively bit her lower lip as her chest flushed a shade of red...Nate knows what that means. He inhaled and regarded Annie carefully.

"Will there be anything else?" He asked her in a quiet voice.

"Umm..." Annie had never felt this nervous before, and that was saying a lot. She felt a wave of color flush over her entire body. A million butterflies fluttered in her stomach as he stepped close to her.

"Or we're you just hoping I would I lock the door and dramatically shove everything off of my desk?" He insinuated.

"...Kind of...yes..." She said barely above a whisper.

Nate sighed deeply, the disappointment in his tone was palpable, "That isn't going to happen."

"Why not!" She suddenly pouted and stomped her foot, "You've been flirting with me all semester and I'm right here!"

He laughed quietly at her; ah, sweet youth. "When exactly was this flirting happening?"

"Oh come on, the little looks...the way you showed me that scar on your hand..."

"Little looks?" He kept laughing, even though she probably didn't appreciate it, "It's not a big shop, sometimes you're going to be in my sightline...and yeah, okay, I'm just a man, and you're a very attractive young lady. I won't lie, I've found myself checking you and Britta out, sue me."

Annie blushed and looked to the ground, _'He thinks I'm hot!'_

"And as for my injury...you just seemed so down after what happened, I wanted to show you that it's not as bad as you think it is. I care about you like I do all my other students, but...not like that."

"I see...", but she didn't see.

"You're a very wonderful, sweet girl, you have so much going for you, but I can't be with you."

She blushed as tears began to form in her eyes, "Another guy I like playing the age card, oh this is just...so...", and she began to cry.

Her tears weakened his resolve, and he moved to put his hand on both of her shoulders to comfort her, pulling her eyes into his, "No, no...the age has nothing to do with it...I'm 31 and you're 20, that's not too bad...if I was in a position where I could date it wouldn't matter if I was 50 and you were 18."

"Really?" She had the waterworks going full steam now, "Then why! Do you not date students or something?"

"I do not have a policy that forbids me from dating students..." He assured her, but still she continued to cry.

He exhaled and breathed back in, facing her again; he was so much taller than she was, "Look...you're awesome, beautiful and sweet...and if the situation was any different than it was, then I would totally go out with you, but I can't...I just don't have the time in my life to date anyone right now...do you understand?"

Annie didn't understand; this seemed totally cliche, but then again, with the way that his sad, blue-grey-green eyes were staring down at her, she knew that he was telling the truth. Even through tears she nodded slightly.

"HEY!" They both turned to the door, hearing Britta's knock at the door threatening to bowl it over before Patterson saw what was going on.

"You'll be good...if I was in college and I had class with you, trust me, you would be on the hit-list." He said with a laugh, "You'll find someone."

"...Yeah." She sobbed, before straightening her posture.

"Alright, good..." He sighed before resuming his seat, "I guess that's Miss Perry outside...tell her to come in."

"So you can just say yes to her, just like all the other guys I like!" Annie flared up with sudden vitriol and anger. Patterson moved to her and stood in front of her, placing a hand on the side of her face.

"Annie, I promise," And he raised his other hand like an Eagle scout, "I will tell her what I told you...not in the exact same words, but the message will be the same."

"You _promise_ promise?" She said sweetly; deep down he felt the grip on his resolve weakening...but no, he had to stay true; for the girls...

"I promise promise. I'll see you when you want to make your shelf." He said as he stepped in front of her and wrapped his arms around her in a soft, gentle hug. She leaned into his shoulder; he could feel the gentle wetness of tears bleeding into his shirt.

Britta had a flurry of hateful curses ready to scream at Annie once she left the office, but all of them quickly left her mind once she saw Annie crying as she closed the door behind her, her dark mascara starting to slightly run down her cheeks.

"Oh, sweetie..." She rubbed a comforting arm on her shoulder, "I'm sorry."

Instead of responding, Annie left the woodshop in a hurry. A part of Britta wanted to leave as well and feel sad for her friend and comfort her while she cried; another part of her said _'Screw you, Annie! First Vaughan, then Jeff, and then you decieve me to ask Nate out before I can and he shuts you down. Britta...for the win!' _

She couldn't abandon the mission.

She walked to the door and poked her head in, seeing Nate writing something at his desk.

"Whatcha working on?" She asked...ugh, that sounded childish.

"Ah, Britta, come in..." He said calmly, "I'm just working on a review for this Avant-garde exhibit I attended last weekend for the school paper, nothing that can't wait. What do you need?"

Britta, normally so cavalier, strong and forward, suddenly felt her knees beginning to tremble in the presence of Mr. Patterson.

He was sort of like Jeff; take Jeff, substitute his All-American J. Crew good looks for the (equally effective) bad-boy rockstar look, add a dash of ink, a touch of class, a helping of brains and an air of intrigue while subtracting a large amount of pretension and braggadocio and you would have the man sitting at his desk before her.

What was she thinking? He was _nothing_ like Jeff!

But she did know one thing; she had better pull it together, or else she was have another "Jeff Winger, I love you..." situation on her hands. She drew a deep breath.

"So that '67 Camaro...that's a pretty hot car. I wouldn't mind checking it out sometime, I'm a bit of a gear head." She said shyly, plying her hands behind her back in a feminine way; she knew that Annie had probably come on _way_ too strong, which any man of quality will almost always rebuff...seduction takes a little bit of subtlety and nuance; like cracking a safe with a stethoscope instead of blowing it open with nitroglycerin. Annie would learn eventually. He looked at her and smiled.

"I can show you the car," He started, "if...that's all you really want to see."

"You know what I mean..." She answered.

"Britta...I..." He started, before stopping, "Did you talk to Miss Edison when she ran out of here crying?"

"No, we're close so I will later...But forget her..."

"Look..." He rose to his feet, "If this was eight years ago, I would probably have said 'yes!' to the both of you and then we'd all end the night together in my bed, but now...my life is just too crazy."

"That's a new excuse." She scoffed.

"Trust me, I wish I could give you the full details, but take my word for it...this..." and he motioned up and down his body, "Is a mess, I just can't involve anyone else in it right now, it's my mess to sort out."

She looked down and colored, a single, solitary tear fell from her eye as he rose and walked towards her; _stupid Nate and his stupid 'You want me but can't have me.' attitude...it totally makes him hotter, and he probably realizes it._

"That's what I said to Annie." He said soothingly; he was now standing close to her, "Annie is a real sweetheart; kind, smart, cheerful and beautiful, any guy would be lucky to have her."

"Great, more Annie love..." She said sarcastically, "There's not enough of that at Greendale."

He paused and took a breath, "And you...you're sexy and complex and passionate...and also very beautiful...Any guy would be lucky to have you as well." He said, his voice taking a sudden heft, "But me, I won't tell you why, at least not yet...I just...can't. I'm so sorry."

She looked into his eyes and smiled a crooked smile; dammit, last-ditch play, "Who says we have to date and move in together and get married and have babies like the typical bourgeosie model? We can keep it casual...casual and fun."

He stepped back slowly, reading her like a book, "You say that, but you don't really mean it."

She looked back at him, saying nothing because she knew her defeated look said what she needed it to say. Whenever Britta didn't get what she wanted from a man, she knew she could always fall back on the casual sex play...and then use that sex as a weapon to eventually strongarm him into a relationship, but for the first time ever, it didn't work.

"I wish it could work...with either of you, really...but..." He said the beginning of a speech, but Britta turned and left his office, following Annie's quick exit out of the woodshop. Nate sat back down at his desk and looked at the ceiling, uttering a disheartened sigh.

Britta, her eyes welled up with tears, found Annie, crouched beside the woodshop door, her knees tucked to her chin and her head lowered. She heard soft, muffled whimpers every few seconds, but she looked up once she heard footsteps.

"I'm so sorry Britta!" Was the first thing she said as she rose to her feet, seeing that her friend was also crying; honestly, she expected Nate to go out with Britta...but here Britta was, like her...tears welling up in her beautiful blue eyes, crying over some boy.

"It's okay, Annie." She said as the two friends exchanged a warm embrace, "But I have a proposal..."

"What is it?" Annie spoke into her shoulder.

"That from this day forward...you and I promise to never let a guy get between us ever again."

They pulled apart, their faces close together, "Deal!" Annie agreed, and they locked pinkies. Britta pulled her in again for another close hug.

"Kiss her!" They both turned, shocked to hear a familiar voice coming at them from down the hall. they both made 'ugh!' sounds as they saw Jeff approaching them, but his smile vanished when he got closer to them and saw the tears in both of their eyes.

"That's it, I'm kicking his ass..." He said with resolve as he walked past them towards the door, but Britta's hand on his arm stopped him in his tracks.

"No...it's our fault, not his...please." She said, her voice full of pathos and drama, "Why are you here, anyways?"

"I just want to talk to him about my grade and see if he can reverse his decision..." He began, "I haven't cut anyone's fingers off in the last few weeks and I've been working hard."

"Well he's in his office." Annie answered. Jeff nodded at her and walked into the door.

When he was in the shop Annie turned to Britta again, "Britta?"

"Yes Annie?"

"This really sucks..." The tears were gone from her eyes, but not her voice.

"Well look on the bright side."

"What bright side!"

"You don't see it, Annie?" She started, putting her hand on the side of her friend's face, "For the first time in your life, when you went after an older man he didn't reject you because of your age!"

She smiled slightly and straightened her posture, "You're right, that is a first..." She paused, "But at the same time...I'd almost rather he tell me it was because of my age instead of for no reason at all other than 'he can't'...I guess this means that I'm maturing."

"Sweetie...I know you are." They hugged again.

"Britta..." Annie asked again, this time into her shoulder.

"Yes, Annie?"

"This still sucks though...can we go and get a drink and talk about it?"

"Do you still have Caroline Decker's ID?" Britta asked, looking into Annie's deep, sad eyes. Annie nodded rapidly.

"Alright, let's go...I know a great place."

"Knock Knock..." Jeff said as he knocked on the door, finding Patterson working on the same review he was when Britta and Annie had just waylaid him. Patterson looked up at the door, before turning back to his review.

"What do you want, Mr. Winger?" Patterson said with exasperation. From day one, he and Jeff co-existed, but they definitely didn't like each other, and the incident with Annie's finger and subsequent automatic F did nothing to alleviate the tension.

"Hey Nate, I came here to ask you..." He stopped as he sniffed the air, "Whoa, it smells like sadness and despair in here."

"Have you ever had to reject two beautiful women, for seemingly no apparent reason, in the space of five minutes?"

"Actually..." Jeff looked into his memory, "You know what? I can't say I have."

"I feel awful about it, but it had to be done..."

"If I may ask...why exactly?" Jeff began, before looking at him slant-eyed, "It's not because you're...you know...", and he raised and lowered his wrist effetely.

"What? Oh god no!"

"I'm just saying if you are then that's cool, I have gay friends, its just how it is sometimes."

"I'm not gay Jeff, it's because..." Suddenly Jeff heard a vibration from the black coat that was hanging on the coat rack in the corner, "Excuse me for a second, I need to take this."

"Should I step out?" Jeff asked, himself now seated on a desk.

"No, no, it's okay, you can stay."

Jeff sat on the desk and tried not to eavesdrop, and though Nate had hid his mouth from Jeff's eyes, he could still make out a few sentences;

_'Thank you so much.'_

_'Yeah, I'm leaving soon.'_

_'Send them in...'_

He hung up the phone and placed it back into his pocket, before walking to the classroom door and opening it, then resuming his seat at his desk, regarding Jeff with his sad, cold eyes.

"So I assume you're here to talk about your default grade..." He spoke.

"Actually..." Jeff wanted to speak, but he was distracted by the sounds of small footsteps...two sets of small footsteps, running through the shop and towards the classroom.

Not a second later, two tiny, beautiful, raven-haired blue eyed little girls ran through the door and to the desk, "Daddy!" The bigger one yelled, jumping into Nate's chest while he sat in his chair. The other one, much smaller, was also able to join him; they were both clad in pink track pants and pastel shirts; the older one in blue, the younger in neon green, and she was carrying a blue stuffed bear at her side. A fan of black hair spread across his face and shoulders.

"There's my girls!" Nate responded joyfully, "How was Grandma's?"

"She taught us how to bake...umm...what was it called, Sabrina?" The smaller one asked the bigger one in a lispy voice.

"Chocolate Mousse!" She replied, her voice less lispy and slightly more polished. Jeff could only smile as he began to see his former rival in a new light.

"Well that's nice, I hope you saved me some, daddy had a bad day today." He said to the both of them, getting gentle kisses all over his face from his young girls, before he stood up and turned them both towards Jeff, "This is Mr. Winger...he's a friend of daddy's."

"Hey girls!" Jeff said, rising and lowering once more to shake both of their hands, but they wrapped him in a hug, and he suddenly felt warm and loved; a feeling so rare in his life.

"I'll be ready to go soon, okay?" Nate said when he had both of his daughter's attention again, "Could you both just wait outside for a second?"

"Yes daddy!" The older one said quickly, before the two of them skipped joyously out of the room.

"The power's off, so they can't turn the machines on." He assured Jeff.

Jeff regarded Nate in silence for a second, "That's a twist I didn't see coming..."

"I can tell by your face." Nate answered with a proud, fatherly grin, "Sabrina, the older one, is eight, and Mishelle is six, and I love them both to death."

"It must be a lot of work."

"It is...but at the same time, I can't imagine what my life would be like without them." Nate gushed, yet another side he so rarely showed, "The only real downside is it can hold me back a little; that's why I can't get involved with either Annie or Britta."

"You're married?"

Nate grabbed his coat and held it at his side, "I was, until two and a half years ago. We were coming back from a weekend in Steamboat, just me and my wife; the kids were with my mother...the roads were icy and it was getting dark...and well..."

He rose and pulled the pant leg up slightly on his left leg. Jeff flinched as he saw a deep, hideous scar as thick as his pinky running vertically up his ankle, "My wife was driving, and this semi kind of side-swiped us...totally caved in her side and brought the weight of the engine onto my leg...he was drunk."

Jeff regarded the man in a new light.

"That scar runs from the top of my foot to a few inches above my knee...they had to use two of my ribs to rebuild my ankle. I was told I'd never walk again, but after fifteen months of physio I did, and I've been raising the girls by myself ever since."

Jeff gasped as he took it all in for a second, "I'm so sorry...but two and a half years...you should be able to date someone, they seem like sweet girls, I bet they'd love a new mother."

"I'm sure they would, but unfortunately I've found that the average girl isn't too thrilled at the prospect of dating a guy with two young kids, and my own standards are very high and discriminating." He said, "I can't expose them to just anyone...Annie is loving, but she's not ready, and Britta is ready, but she's not loving. It's as unfair to the two of them as it is to my daughters."

"But even still, why not? Just to see what happens?" Jeff asked.

"You don't understand Jeff." Nate said with a slight tone of frustration, "While you're out there trying to sleep with women, I'm trying to _raise_ women...and realize, that if I didn't have them I wouldn't be dating Britta _or_ Annie; I'd be dating Britta _and_ Annie...simultaneously, probably doing _other_ things with them simultaneously as well, but I do have them and that changes everything. What if I meet someone and it doesn't work? The girls get attached but we break up? What would that do to them?"

"But that's just life. People are incompatible and generally don't get along."

"That may be, but then if I can't date, what if I meet a girl and just bring her home and sleep with her?" Nate continued, "And the girls see her sneaking out in the morning...and the next weekend I do it again with a different girl? What kind of message does that send? That it's okay to give your body to a man for nothing in return? That's not how I want them to look at the world. I'm going to tell you a secret that only a few people know...You can't tell anyone."

"Okay..." Jeff said with unease. Since arriving at Greendale he had to get used to becoming something of a confidant for people ranging from Troy to the Dean. He was still only moderately comfortable with it, even with his lawyer skills; it was much different when you were guaranteed 5% of the settlement.

"I haven't had sex since my wife passed away...and I don't miss it."

Jeff had to actively tell his brain to not let his jaw drop; two and a half years? How is that even possible? It's not like Nate is an ugly or unpleasant man; he's very easy-going and attractive (though, Jeff still maintains, not as attractive as he is).

Jeff considers two and a half _months_ a cold streak.

"Wow...are you sure you still know how to do it?"

"I cut a pretty wide swath through the Humanities and Psychology departments at school, for two and a half years I never slept with the same girl twice in a row...yeah, I think my memory is fine." He assured Jeff, "And who knows? In five years, Sabrina will be thirteen and Mishelle will be eleven, and they'll start wanting some space, and I'll be able to give it to them...I'll be thirty-six, smack in the middle of my prime, still with a good ten years left to find someone and make myself happy...but today; the now and the near future, is all about them and putting them first, even at the expense of myself."

"Yeah..." Jeff agreed, nodding along. There was a short, momentary silence between the two of them.

"Anyways, I'm leaving so that means you are too, come on." Nate said, shutting the lights off as Jeff followed him out the door, which he locked, he then turned back to Jeff.

"You know, it's not too late for you to start becoming the person you want to be, either..."

"That's what I've been finding out since I've been here." Jeff replied, his voice sullen but at the same time hopeful.

"You've been doing some good work lately, and you haven't removed anyone's digits in three weeks..." He paused, "And I know you saw the way your friend had been looking at me; I know I don't exactly look like the type of warm-and-fuzzy guy you thought Annie would go for, and you were just trying to look out for her. If you do well on your final project, I'll give you a C for the semester."

"Cool, thanks..." Jeff began, but stopped. He had something on the tip of his tongue but wasn't sure if he should say it.

"No problem." Nate answered, with understanding in his voice...ah, what the hell? Jeff opened his mouth to speak again.

"Actually...and don't get me wrong I hugely appreciate this, but a B- would be better." Jeff prodded, knowing he was on dangerous ground as Nate narrowed his eyes, "A B- would keep my average high enough so that I won't have to go on academic probation."

Nate looked at him sideways. "Academic probation...? At Greendale? Wow, that has to be one of the saddest things I've ever heard. Yeah, sure, if your last project impresses me, I'll make it a B-."

Jeff wanted to hug Nate, but he held back; pending his work, his average was now saved and he had a reason to continue going to class, all he could muster was a kind and sincere "Thank you so much."

"Don't thank me until you've earned the grade, and _definitely _don't tell anyone." Nate said, and Jeff nodded in understanding, "Oh I almost forgot, come with me."

The two men walked to the storage area, where right in the middle of the room sat a squat, rectangular coffee table, stained in a rich and dark mahogany finish. A few drawers were built into the bottom and had been fit with porcelain handles.

"I finished Annie's coffee table earlier tonight...I hope she likes it."

"She will..." Jeff asnwered, before he grabbed it to take home.

"Could you bring it to her? I hoped that she would pick it up on Monday, but I don't think she'll be back."

"Sure..." 

Jeff held the coffee table; it was fairly lightweight and the drawers were taped shut. He and Nate walked towards the door.

"By the way, could you maybe do me a small favor?" Nate asked again, "Only if it comes up, that is...since I am helping you out."

"Of course."

"I hear you're in some sort of study group with Perry and Edison?"

"Yeah, though it's less of a study group and more of a social club." Jeff lamented.

"Well then...if what happened between me and them tonight, you know, comes up..." He started, "Could you maybe help them see things from my perspective? They're both great girls and the last thing I want either of them to think is that I had to say no because of anything to do with them; truthfully, I'm attracted to them both, but it's just not the time. Again, only if it comes up."

"I'm almost certain it will come up." Jeff replied as they walked to the door of the shop, "And yeah, I'll try to explain the situation."

"Thank you, Jeff..."

Jeff's level of repect for Nathan Patterson had, in just ten minutes, gone from 'non-existent', to 'very, very high'. He won't try to hide it; he's fiercely competitive and easily made jealous, just look at what happened with Dr. Rich, but this was different; Dr. Rich was perfect...but almost _too_ perfect, and part of the reason Jeff didn't like him is because he knows that _no one_ can be that perfect without anything to hide...but Nate is different; he is a good man who has flaws and baggage, but who _wanted_ to be better and was actually doing something about it.

They had a lot in common...except that when it came to Britta and Annie With regards to those two, Nate, unlike Jeff, was at least able to stick to his convictions.

As he carried Annie's coffee table out the door just ahead of Nate and his daughters, he stopped when he was outside the door and turned to them. He had to hold back a smile when he saw Mishelle perched atop his shoulders and Sabrina's tiny hand clutched in his right hand.

"Hey Nate." He asked.

"Yeah?"

"Do you want to grab a beer sometime?" He asked almost sheepishly.

"Sure Jeff." Nate replied with no hesitation.


	5. Family Day

**Family Day **

**(3 Months Later...)**

Family Day at Greendale had always been an interesting experience for Jeff; on his first one, he slept with Pierce's stepdaughter, realized how upset he was over Michelle _and_, the cherry on top, he got to see Pierce vs. Chang I. He had to miss it last year because he was working, but this year he was able to book it off, partly because he was hoping to see Amber (or an equally attractive step-daughter of Pierce's) again, but also partly because he was kind of enjoying the experience.

Since it falls so closely to Valentine's Day (exactly one week later), the Dean thought it would be a great idea to 'Continue the love, Greendale!', and so he kept most of the decorations and booths from the prior week's celebration open. Paper hearts and Cupid cutouts adorned the trees and lamp-posts, and set up on either side of him were myriad booths specializing in many things; from a few beverage stands to cotton candy to a dunk tank on which sat an already-soaked Human Being, no expense had been spared.

He walked through the crowded quad, alone again. No members of his family were here...but at the same time, his whole family was here. He cast a glance over his left side, at the Kissing Booth that Britta and Annie were both working; $1 for a kiss on the cheek, $5 for a quick 'two-steamboat' kiss on the mouth (_''Two steamboats'...I wonder how many guys tried to slip them tongue?'_), and judging by how many bills were in their jar and the lineup he had seen an hour earlier, they were cleaning up.

For once using his better judgment, Jeff had decided to stay away from their booth. He had given them each $5 before they got set up and wouldn't take any kisses from either of them.

"Yo, Jeff." He heard from in front of him and he turned to see Nate, walking with Mishelle holding his right hand and Sabrina holding his left. They smiled at him as he crouched down, and ran to wrap him in a hug.

"Je-fffffff!" They both squealed in unison as they wrapped their tiny arms around his broad shoulders, the smile on his face was permanent.

"Hey girls!" He said happily, "So daddy finally got you in here during the day?"

"We got the day off school!" Mishelle said joyfully, before hugging him again.

In the past three months, Nate and Jeff's relationship had moved from initially frosty to now mostly-friendly with a slight tinge of brotherly rivalry. They went out for a drink usually every other Tuesday, and like Jeff himself, Nate was a Scotch man; though unlike Jeff he preferred Kilkerran Glengyle over The Mccallan, but Jeff didn't hate. Nate enjoyed talking to Jeff about his past as a lawyer and his friendships with his quasi-family, and Jeff discovered that Nate was the perfect wingman; a good-looking, charming, sober man who couldn't date, had no reservations about distracting the unattractive friend and could cause any girl to turn on her heel with just three key words; 'Two young daughters'. Was there anything better?

Even still, they had become fast friends, and in that time Jeff had even babysat the girls a few times when Nate was held up with the administrative side of his job at the school, which likely consisted of at least as much fondling at the hands of the Dean as it did paperwork. The girls were incredibly well-behaved, and at the end of the night when Nate arrived home to find the three of them passed out on the couch, he couldn't help but smile. It also didn't hurt that Jeff refused payment and said he'd be happy to do it again.

"I'm glad they got the day off class." Nate answered as he stood in front of Jeff and the men shook hands, "I had hoped I could sort of clear things up with..."

Jeff pointed with his chin over his shoulder at the Kissing Booth, where the lineup (that half an hour ago had been fifty-deep) now just held a few people. Nate nodded at him in thanks and walked over.

Jeff knew how weird things had gotten between the three of them; Annie didn't show up for the last two classes, which wasn't unusual because she already got her A+, but at the same time _was_ unusual because one of her nicknames was Annie 'Perfect Attendance' Edison _(along with 'Irony-free Annie', 'Jiggly Snow White', 'Niccolo Machiavannie' and of course, 'Little Annie Adderall'). _

Britta, meanwhile, still showed up but mostly spent her time outside smoking or chatting with the group. She had bribed Abed with her rare DVD copy of _The Hudsucker Proxy_ to make her a footstool, which she took home, stained and slightly altered for her final project. She got a B on it and a B- in the class. Nate told Jeff that he knew about this, but he said that since she actually tried in the class and was actively avoiding him that he feigned his knowledge of it. Nate wasn't about to fail a girl after he had hurt her, and Jeff admired his level of non-assholeishness.

The girls turned their attention up to him. He grabbed both of them by the hand, "I guess I'll give you a tour...how about some cotton candy?"

"Yay!" They both shouted as they walked through the crowd.

Britta looked over as Annie planted a chaste, closed-mouth two-steamboat on the lips of the guy with the long, dark hair, pulling away flushed and smiling as he handed her a five.

She bounced happily, "Thank you for supporting the advancement of the arts at Greendale!"

The boy blushed, "Sure...", before turning and standing still for about ten seconds, before he finally walked away. There was a slight break in traffic, and she looked over at Britta.

"Oh my god!" She said as she handed the money to her friend who displaced it into the now-nearly-full pickle jar, "Are we killing it, or are we killing it!"

"We are in fact kicking ass!" Britta answered as they high-fived and Britta turned it into a snake, "When you have a minute you can go over the math, but I have a feeling that the money we raised today will really help towards getting us those courses we wanted!"

Britta briefly retreated into her mind. _'I have my own version of the math; out of 170 or so kisses, 110 of them were for Annie...not that I'm not hot; I curled my hair and wore a tank-top today. It's gotta be the forbidden fruit thing...maybe I need to work on my people skills?_

_...Wait, is it good or bad that I got less kisses from the men of Greendale than Annie? At least I didn't have to deal with Garrett trying to feel me up.'_

Ever since the incident with Nate in the woodshop and their vow to never fight over a man again, the girls had never been closer. They were even considering renting a place together, since money was tight and they were both on the verge of being kicked out of their respective apartments. Annie had even made lists and flowcharts of places that they would look at that cost $600 a month or less, better than the $400 each they were currently paying.

Even if Britta _really deep_ down knew that her and Annie could never stop fully competing, she realized that having her as a roommate would definitely keep her a little more organized, and maybe her being around Annie would cause her to loosen up and enjoy life a little.

"Yay!" Annie jumped and clapped, but Britta had turned her face as it went stone-cold and slightly scared. Annie followed suit.

"Hey girls..." Nate said quietly to the two of them. Britta held his gaze, while Annie looked down and flushed.

"Hey Nate...how are you?" Britta asked with false bravado.

"Pretty good, busy..." He trailed off, "And a little let down."

"Let down?" Annie finally raised her head and asked; he was wearing black skinny jeans with a chain wallet and a tight black tee shirt with something called 'The Jesus and Mary Chain' (_'What the heck is a Jesus and Mary Chain? I'll have to ask Shirley, she'll know...'_) written above the black and white faces of two men. Completing the 'black' motif he had going on were big black boots and jet-black Aviators. _'Damn he looks hot...'_

"Well Annie, you never came back to build your shelf, and I haven't seen either of your names on the register sheet for Intermediate Woodworking. Everyone in your group is taking the class except you two, and there's only a week left to sign up." He said, "You were both great students, I'm kinda bummed out..."

"Well just...after it happened." Annie started, _'I can barely look at you without crying...'_, "I just felt like it might have been kinda awkward."

"And I've kind of embraced the minimalism thing..." Britta chimed in, _'Okay first, that shirt is awesome...and second, I actually, really and truly liked you!'_, "So I don't really need any new furniture."

Nate sensed the discomfort of the girls, so he deftly switched the subject, pointing at the pickle jar that was threatening to burst with green bills.

"So what are you raising money for?" He asked.

"We want the Dean to add two classes to the curriculum." Annie told him.

"Post-Feminist Philosophical Thought, and Early Romantic Literary Theory." Britta finished her sentence.

"If it's for the good of Greendale and my education, then it's worth it...even with Leonard trying and mostly succeeding to stick his tongue down my throat." Annie said, before shuddering with a disturbed look on her face.

Nate laughed, "What's really funny is that you don't even have to tell me who wants which one.", the girls both giggled, "How are you doing? It looks like you've done well, I'm hardly shocked."

"Annie, what are the numbers?" Britta asked her.

"Well..." Annie grabbed a small notepad that hung from a hook just above her head, "With the $20 we both each submitted and the $10 from Jeff, plus 64 $5 two-steamboats and 103 $1 pecks on the cheek..."

"Not to mention the $2000 check that Pierce gave us." Britta said with derision.

"Why did Pierce give you $2000?" Nate quizzed, "Is he a fan of the arts as well?"

"Actually it was for us to make-out for thirty seconds..." Britta answered.

"That should be around $2473 today..." Annie did the math and answered, "We're trying to raise $2500."

"You're pretty close to your goal, then?" He asked, _'Holy crap, that's a lot of money...'_.

"Yup!" They both nodded in unison.

Nate reached into his wallet and leafed through a fairly prominent roll of bills, finding the stoic face of Ulysses S. Grant looking back at him from his vantage on a fifty. He grabbed it and placed it in the slot in the top of the jar. They both looked at him with shocked smiles.

"We're not kissing each other again!" Annie was the first to say with a smile, "Pierce taped it, and I'm pretty sure he put it on Twitter!"

Nate smiled and leaned in, first turning a cheek to Britta, which she leaned in and kissed, and then his opposite cheek to Annie, which she followed, "Now both at the same time..." He said, and they leaned in and planted simultaneous kisses on each of his cheeks. They were both flustered and coquettish when they leaned back.

"Thank you, Nate!" Annie gushed.

"Britta and Annie for the win!" Britta said exuberantly, before ringing the bell above her head, signaling that the necessary funds had been raised. She twisted open the lid of the jar and dumped it onto the table where it nearly overflowed. Annie's nimble fingers and even-more nimble brain was able to count it quickly.

"That's $523 in bills and coins, and..." She grabbed the small, rectangular piece of white paper and looked at it; _Pay to the Order of: Greendale Community College, Amount: $2000, Signed: Pierce Hawthorne, Memo: Now you're both my favorites..._, "Pierce's check...gross."

"Let's get this to the Dean." Britta said quickly as she wrapped everything up in a thin elastic and Annie grabbed a glittery 'Closed!' sign and placed it on the table. The girls turned to the side and prepared to leave in unison.

"Wait..." Nate said, stopping them both dead in their tracks.

"Yes?"

"Look, I know you've both been avoiding me since that night, and that's why you won't be taking my class. But I feel awful about the way things ended between the three of us." He said, and their faces softened; this wasn't Jeff Winger crocodile tears, this was real emotion, the pathos in his eyes glazed them over, "After you talk to the Dean, call Jeff and find him..."

"O...kay?" Annie asked, clueless. They both turned and walked away, with Nate pulling out his phone to call Jeff and re-connect with his girls, but he hesitated for a second before he opened his directory.

_'I really shouldn't...'_, but he did. Twitter app, NateLPatterson_GCC, Password: Mishrina, Following: Old White Man Says.

**Oldwhitemansays **Oldwhitemansays

JeffWingerAtLaw, TroyTBone09, Anniesb00bs, AbedsTweets, SenorChang_GCC Annie and Britta making out for 30 seconds... yfrog/c7kr3tr/mbcbb

_#Yourewelcome #Hotgirlongirlaction_

_9 minutes ago_

_He opened the video link, and the video was titled 'Medium Boobs converts Big Boobs'. _

_"Come on girls...Britta, I know you want to..." Pierce taunted._

_"Don't be gross, Pierce!" Annie retorted._

_"Two-thousand dollars for a thirty-second kiss...that's like $66 per second...that's CEO money..."_

_"It's only CEO money because they lay off half of their workforce so they can keep their huge bonuses, and another thing..." Britta began a trademark rant._

_"UGH!" Pierce, Annie, and a few surrounding people groaned their disapproval, someone even said 'You're the worst!', and Britta stopped._

_"Well do you have to tape it?" Britta asked._

_"For confirmation purposes...yes, I do." Pierce answered plainly._

_"Ugh, fine..." Annie said exasperatedly._

_Britta and Annie turned to face each other. Britta was the first to move, grabbing Annie by the back of her neck and pulling her in, their mouths connecting together. Annie seemed stiff and shocked at first, but after about five seconds she began to reciprocate as she ran her hands through Britta's hair and finally came to rest on her hips. A few scattered cheers could be heard in the background, and the kiss didn't end until he heard Pierce's voice, "And that's thirty...". They were both breathless and flushed afterward as they pulled away from each other, "Admit it...you both liked that a little bit."_

_"Just give us the check, Pierce..." Britta turned to yell at him._

"Nice." Nate said to himself as he closed the app and opened his contacts, scrolling to Jeff.

"How are you doing over there, Sabrina?" Jeff asked the little girl, seated twenty feet away on a picnic table, with a ball of cotton candy so comically large that it looked like it could support her.

She hid behind it, before peeking out and smiling, and again hiding her face behind it, Jeff smiled at her.

"Kick it back, Jeff!" Mishelle's tiny voice said from near ground-level. A small Size 3 soccer ball rolled gently to his feet , and he couldn't help but do a little bit of showboating; first he kicked it up to his feet, bounced it a few times, and then sent it back behind his head, where he blindly slapped his heel back and sent the ball a few feet over to his head, where it rolled back to Mishelle, who laughed.

"In a few years I can teach you how to do that." He assured her, "Kick it back to me with the inside of your foot."

Just as she did what she was told and the ball rolled harmlessly back towards him, he felt a vibration in his pocket and removed his phone, seeing Nate's name on the display.

"Hey man..." He spoke, "Oh yeah, we're just kicking the ball around on the football field."

He turned and looked over his left shoulder and saw a tall, dark form walking slowly towards them. He reached up to wave, "Yeah I can see you...cool, see you in a second..."

Nate's long legs carried him quickly, and in a flash of movement he stole the soccer ball from Mishelle and exchanged a fistbump with Jeff. He turned to his youngest daughter, "Header?"

"Ready!" She said with a joyful squeal. He gently lifted the ball with his foot, and she leaned into it, connecting with the top of her head and sending it back to them. She kicked the ball back at Jeff.

He walked over to the table and sat beside Sabrina, "Can I have some cotton candy?"

"Sure!", and he picked a small piece off the side and dropped it into his mouth, feeling the sweetness dissolve on his tongue. When he looked up, Jeff was back on his phone.

"...Annie...yeah I'm with Nate right now," He looked over at his friend, who nodded, "Yeah sure, we're on the football field kicking a ball around. See you in a minute."

Jeff resumed kicking the ball around with Mishelle, while Nate and Sabrina sat and shared cotton candy on the bench, and given that it was a pleasant, unseasonably warm mid-February day, it was an almost idyllic scenario. A few moments passed before Jeff had the ball on his feet again.

Mishelle pointed to his left, "Kick it to her, Jeff!"

Jeff turned his head and saw Britta and Annie, standing just a few feet away. Britta's arms were crossed over her chest and her face shone with a small smile, while Annie made her 'gleeful' Disney eyes. He gently tapped the ball over to Britta.

"I never expected you to be good with kids..." She said as she passed the ball back to Mishelle, "Is she a young cousin or something?"

"Actually...they're Nate's daughters." He said, finally the big reveal, "The football star here is Mishelle, and her over on the bench with Nate," he pointed back, Sabrina was now sitting on his lap and her face could be seen behind the pink and blue puff of candy fuzz, "That's Sabrina."

"Awwwwwwwww!" Britta and Annie practically melted on ths spot in unison. Annie walked to Mishelle and crouched low.

"You have pretty hair!" Mishelle told her, and Annie blushed and cooed.

"Awwww, so do you, sweetie!" She pulled her in and hugged her, "You're so beautiful, you look just like your dad!"

The mystery of the name 'Mishelle' tattooed on Nate's right wrist was now solved...

The three of them kicked the ball around for about twenty more minutes, before the girls wanted to go back and check out the Family Day festivities.

"I'll race you!" Jeff boasted, running - albeit slowly - ahead of them. Sabrina latched around his left ankle and he brought himself to the ground, and Mishelle joined in and jumped on his chest. Annie and Britta trailed back, walking with Nate as he flicked his cigarette.

"Nate!" Annie said in her 'I love butterflies!' voice, "They are SO sweet!"

"It must be hard raising them by yourself." Britta interjected; Nate had explained that their mother was no longer with them and showed the girls the scar. Annie could handle it, but Britta turned a noticeable shade of green and gagged.

"Thank you...yeah, it is..." He started, "But..."

"But what?" Britta asked, placing a hand on his arm.

"Do you remember that night, three months ago?" He asked as they walked behind the girls and Jeff; he was carrying one of them in each arm and their squeals of joy could be heard clearly.

"We've both tried to forget it, but..." Annie looked down again.

"Trust me, I have too..." He said sadly, "Truth is; I haven't had an easy life...in high school, I was never the stud, the cool guy, I was the bullied nerd in AP with a back brace and bad skin. After that I dealt with 60 hour work weeks before I came here, and then what happened on that night almost three years ago when Angelina was taken from me...but that night with the two of you was as difficult as any I have ever had. You both wanted me, and it broke my heart to not be able to reciprocate the feelings, even though I wanted to..."

The girls both blushed at the same time.

"Those girls up there." He motioned to them and Jeff ahead, "They're my life, they depend on me, 24/7...but I'm glad you met them; I would be extremely happy if they turned out as good as the two of you did."

Annie was now crying, and - loath to admit it - Britta was on the verge of tears herself. They both leaned in to hug him, and he somehow reciprocated, wrapping his long arms around the two of them.

"You know, my work here sometimes keeps me at the campus until ten PM...If either of you ever need to earn a bit of extra cash I'm always looking for someone to watch them for me, I hate having to ask my mother." He told them, both of their arms still clutching at his shoulders and back.

"Sure!" Annie answered, looking over at Britta who gave a slightly less enthusiastic affirmative answer.

"Good. So will I see you both in Intermediate Woodworking?" He asked after the near-thirty second embrace parted.

"Yeah..." Britta replied.

"Yes." Annie answered.

"Cool..." Nate said with a big smile, himself almost beginning to tear up, "Let's get back to the festivities."


	6. Single Malt

**Jeff-Annie shippers will probably hate this chapter.**

**Single Malt**

**A Month Later...**

Nate sat at the dense, perfectly coated mahogany bar at the Warwick, a single, quarter-full glass of Glengyle in front of him, being gently spun with his fingertips, making the dark liquid in the glass rise and fall slowly. Gentle Jazz rhythms bounced through the room and the dim light hid the faces of the patrons partly from view. He was here meeting up with Jeff for a drink, and had managed to get Britta and Annie to spend the night watching the girls.

It was alright; Mishelle and Sabrina were very well-behaved and had taken quite nicely to Annie and Britta, especially after Britta brought them unlimited throws at the Human Being dunk tank and Annie introduced them to the rest of her friends. The girls liked them, and they would both make $40 each (plus the $20 he left for a pizza), win win.

The petite blonde bartender ambled slowly in front of Nate, "How's that Scotch doing, sweetie?" She asked with a smile and a distinct sparkle in her eyes, placing her hand in her chin. Nate had been on the receiving of that look many times.

"Fine, thank you." Nate answered stoically, "When my friend gets here he'll want a Mccallan with no ice."

"Okay. You let me know if you need anything." She blushed and walked away.

As Jeff and Nate had become friends, the drinks were merely a social gathering, a contract between them; Nate liked the male company (since he was pretty much constantly surrounded by women; his girls, his mother, his aunts and a bevy of female orbiters) and he and Jeff talked about all sorts of things; law, politics, dating, music, sports...it was cool.

But tonight, Nate wanted to learn something about Jeff. It was clear that both Britta and Annie had feelings for him, and Jeff, unlike himself, was a man without the kind of constraints that prevented him from acting on them...but why? Jeff had never really touched on this before.

"Professor!" Jeff said with a nod as he walked into the door, clad in a very nice bespoke grey suit with a thin blue tie. Nate raised his glass to him and signaled the bartender with the raise of a finger, to which she smiled and nodded in response. Jeff sat down on the stool to his right and they shook hands.

"Sharp suit." Jeff commented, looking at Nate's dark Ralph Lauren Black Label two-button in navy black with red pinstripes, "Very Gangster."

"Probably my favorite, How you been?" Nate asked.

"Great, I was working on a few cases today and one got settled...for $2 million."

"Nice, how much of that gets to you?"

"Twenty-k, plus my $85 hourly rate...all in all not bad." Jeff boasted, "I might not even have to go back to being a lawyer, I can just consult."

"Sweet, sweet..."

"What about you? How are the girls?" Jeff switched tracks.

"They're well, and currently under the watchful eyes of one Britta Perry and one Annie Edison." Nate answered, downing a gulp of smoky scotch until there was just a mouthful left.

"It's nice that they're doing that for you." Jeff replied as the bartender lay a tumbler half-full of scotch on a napkin in front of Jeff, which he grabbed and sniffed. She flashed a coy look at Nate as she walked away.

"Yeah, yeah..." Nate started, before finishing his last gulp of scotch and ordering another with his eyes, "Actually, I wanted to ask you something about them."

Jeff's eyes grew dark; it doesn't matter if Nate is his friend and he had sort of a 'history' with Annie and Britta, and had actually turned out to be a worthy man of good caliber; Jeff, due to his jealous and competitive nature, wouldn't be happy if either of them started dating Nate...even though he probably should be.

"Okay..."

"Well...what's your deal with them?" Nate asked, his drink just arriving.

"I'm sorry, my deal?" Jeff asked incredulously.

"Yeah...I'm not blind you know." Nate started, "Annie cut off her finger because of you, and when I met the girls earlier at their place she mentioned having to call you later because she had tried six times and couldn't get a hold of you...and Britta seems to drop a 'Jeff Winger' into every second sentence...so, what's up?"

Jeff's mouth was agape; of all the conversations he and Nate had and would have, he never expected this to be one of them...well okay, maybe he sort of did, but in a way he was hoping he was wrong. He took a long, slow sip of his drink, downing nearly half of it and recoiling from the heat.

"Okay first...I know it to be true, but I want to hear you tell it to me; this conversation doesn't leave this bar..."

"Of course not." Nate replied.

"No no, say it..." Jeff said forcefully.

Nate raised his right hand, "This conversation doesn't leave this bar." Jeff looked relieved and looked into his glass.

"Well, I know Annie was calling me because she wanted me to go over the lease on their new place, just to make sure it was all legitimate. I was stuck under a paralegal and I'll probably stop by tomorrow."

"And I can see how you'd be helpful in that department." Jeff took another sip of his drink and a breath before speaking.

"Thing is with Britta, the entire reason I'm friends with her, and Pierce, and Abed and the whole group, is because in the beginning I wanted to hook up with her, that was two years ago, and that's why I formed the study group." Jeff paused, "And even though things moved at a glacial pace, we got closer and closer, and finally...well yeah, we hooked up...and then the group found out and freaked, and after the fallout we still wanted to keep doing it, so we fooled around on the side for almost a year. We stopped, though, a while ago."

"Oh yeah?"

"I don't know if you heard, but that girl, in a room full of people, on the last day of school, after sleeping with me _once_, told me she loved me."

"Whoa!" Nate was legitimately shocked; that didn't seem even remotely like the Britta he only half-knew.

"I know right? I mean I got skills, but that totally threw me for a loop." Jeff returned, "And all this while still doing nothing to hide her...contempt is the wrong word here, she never hated me...her...disagreement with how I live my life?"

"I can kinda see that."

"We kept things just physical, because really we're the exact same person, but with one subtle difference; I don't pretend to care about stuff because I think it makes me look like a good person, she does. She's just as vain, uncaring and competitive as me, and even though she didn't mean it...I mean SHE TOLD A ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE SHE LOVED ME!"

"Girls can do some crazy shit, I know this to be true."

"Yeah." Jeff took another sip, "With Britta, as long as it was just physical it was fine; no strings, just sex. As soon as things moved a bit beyond the physical, we both knew we had to stop. Annie is a whole other different thing."

"I can see that, she seems very fragile."

"She seems fragile, but that's part of the trap; she really isn't. But the relationship is different between me and her compared to me and Britta." Jeff answered, "At least with Britta, we knew enough about each other that we didn't really like, but we could still connect on that physical level, but it can't be that way with Annie, she's so young, and I won't be 'that guy' who does that to her; ruins her opinion of men, takes away her ability to trust, makes her bitter and jaded...In other words, I don't want to be the guy that turns her into Britta."

"She doesn't seem like she could handle a purely physical relationship, she's probably into that whole pure Victorian notion of love and dating, painfully long courtships and no sex before marriage and all that."

"I think she'd waive the no sex before marriage, but that's a fairly apt summary. Really, it's not even that..."

"The age difference?"

Jeff stopped talking for a second to take yet another sip, his glass was almost empty, so he preemptively ordered another, "Honestly, the age isn't what's stopping me."

"When she asked me out she mentioned something about the 'Age Card'."

"And that's what I tell her because she's Annie; 'You're awesome but I won't date you because you're too young', but there's something else about her, and trust me when I say it isn't as cute and pretty as she is. Be honest; could you tell her the ugly truth about why you'd never date her, or would you take the easy way out? I have an easier time lying to the Grand Jury than to that girl." Jeff inquired.

"Hurting her feelings was like clubbing a baby seal with another baby seal. I think it's the eyes."

"That's exactly what it's like!" Jeff said, his drink again arriving, "For me at least, it's never been about the age; I like that Annie's young and inexperienced, that she knows next to nothing about men...she doesn't see through me every time I play the age card, I mean really...thinking that I or any man would have a problem dating a cute, feminine twenty year old! Really, Annie! EVERY older man wants to date a girl like her!"

"She is pretty hot."

"She's very hot!" Jeff said loudly, pausing as the other patrons of the bar glanced at him, "And kind, and sweet, and smart and cheerful and made of rainbows and happy-fun-candy...but there's this one trait she has, just _one_ thing that keeps her in the friend zone, and unfortunately it's a pretty big thing and something that, if it ever changes, won't be until long after her looks have left her."

"It must be a pretty big issue...what is it?" Nate quizzed.

Jeff took a sip of his drink, "...she's incredibly selfish."

"Really?" Nate rubbed his chin in revelation, "She told me she volunteers at a soup kitchen and she seemed caring and kind...the last thing I would imagine her as is selfish."

"Only because you don't know her like I do." Jeff assured him, "She has it hard; living alone in a shithole neighborhood, just scraping by on pennies a day, totally estranged from her family...so it's almost like we - me, Britta, Abed, Troy, Pierce, Chang and Shirley - are her family."

"That sounds kinda cliche."

"Yes it does..._Abed._ But it seems odd to me...Annie's always saying that we're like her family, admonishing me for my arrogance and vanity, saying that I'm 'faster than some bacteria' and an 'overpriced clump of fabric and hair product', but she doesn't ever seem to turn that eye inwards, because if she did, she'd see that she _continually_ puts herself; her needs, her wants, her goals, ahead of the rest of her supposed 'family'."

"What does that mean?"

"Well in first year she dated Britta's ex, and then kissed me on the last day of school after I told her that Britta and Michelle said they loved me - Michelle was my then-ex girlfriend, a former professor at Greendale -. In one move she severely compromised our chances of passing Spanish _and_ effectively ruined Chang's life because she didn't want us to drift apart." Jeff took a breath, "Then later, she sabotaged Greendale's space simulator so she could transfer to City College, which was funny because a couple of months earlier, she was so concerned that we would 'drift apart' that she was willing to get Chang fired and ensure that we all failed. Later she had a now-legendary freakout over a purple pen, showed everyone a very embarrassing videotape of me just to win a contest, and then, just before that awful paintball game at the end of last year...she did something that I knew would totally rule out her as a relationship prospect, once more with more of her selfishness."

"What did she do? I heard she lost the game?" Nate wondered aloud.

"Well, you've met Pierce, right?"

"Oldwhitemansays...racist, awkward, kinda mean and vindictive...yeah I know him." Nate answered, though really, Pierce had never been anything but super nice to him.

"Last year, Pierce did some evil shit that I won't get into, and before paintball we held a quiet vote on whether or not to invite him back to the group this year; playing cards, black means no, red means yes, it had to be unanimous, you get the idea."

"Yeah..."

"Well...the vote went 5 'No' to 1 'Yes', so the motion failed."

"You and him seem to be getting along."

"Well that may be, but then realize; me, Abed, Troy, Shirley and Britta, we all voted no, and the single yes vote was..."

"Miss Edison." Nate took a deep sip of his scotch.

"Of course...and Pierce didn't even want to rejoin the group anyways." Jeff finished his second drink, "But that's not the point; once more it was Annie doing what _she_ wanted to do, not caring about anything but what _she_ wanted, totally unwilling to budge on _her_ position even though _her_ 'family' was clearly going in the opposite direction, in doing so almost destroyed us...she can only compromise when she benefits from it, which kind of nullifies the point of a compromise to begin with."

"Whoa..."

"I haven't been in many 'relationships' per se, but one thing I know about them is that they involve compromise, on both sides." Jeff spoke resolutely, "You want to know what a relationship between me and Annie would look like? Let me paint you a picture; I'd end up being manipulated with so many tears and guilt-trips that I'd eventually morph into a shadow of the man I am, and is that really worth it? I'd get to have sex with her which would probably be awesome, but even still, the answer is no. If she really loved me like she says she does, she would take me for who I am, not for who she wanted me to be."

"Wow...that's some pretty heavy stuff there..." Nate replied, drinking from his glass and playing with it on the shiny surface of the bar, "I never would have suspected anything..."

"Yeah..." Jeff answered, "But I'm curious...why did you ask?"

"What do you mean?"

"Have you come around on them?" Jeff said with a perfunctory tone, "If you want to date one of them, then it's fine...I would probably go ahead and say that you and Annie have more in common; troubled pasts and lives full of duty and responsibility, hell, you two even sort of look alike. But with Britta, you'd have an easier time; you'd have more to talk about and more common interests, and I know you could level her out."

"That's still an impossibility. I asked because I was curious and you are my good friend; nothing ulterior."

"Well, I hope I gave you the answers you wanted." Jeff said quietly; Jeff knew he could open up to Nate, because aside from the fact that he was nonjudgmental and cool, he was also blazingly smart and could give him perspective on things. Jeff took another long swig of his drink, "I'm not going to permanently shut out the possibility of anything ever happening between me and either of them. If Britta stops lying to herself and everyone else, and Annie can learn to put the the welfare of others ahead of what she wants, then yeah, I would not rule out a relationship with either of them. I know it sounds like I'm talking a lot of shit about them, and maybe I sort of am, but I love them both very much; they're like my family...and when you love someone, you have to take them as they are."

"Truer words have rarely been spoken." Nate said with respect.

"Yeah, that's kinda my thing." Jeff answered. He turned his attention back to his drink and took a slow sip.

**The End**


End file.
